


my hands are of your color

by protectoroffaeries



Series: they think me macbeth [4]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Sex, Lost Love, Lovers, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, References to Macbeth, References to Shakespeare, Religion, Romeo and Juliet References, Stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-05 21:27:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10317323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/protectoroffaeries/pseuds/protectoroffaeries
Summary: "My hands are of your color, but I shame To wear a heart so white."





	

**Author's Note:**

> shakespeare references ×2
> 
> this was meant to be posted on the ides of march so it could be ×3 but I'm a failure

John dies with the summer.

September ushers in autumn, which turns the world colder and darker with each passing day. Alexander's heart mirrors this shift with its mourning, as if he and Nature are united in their grief. As if the world cares that John is  _ gone. _

When Eliza reads him Henry Laurens’ letter, Alexander has little to say. When he is forced to comment on the situation in his correspondence with others, he has little to say. Until the day Death comes for him, too, he has little to say on the loss of his dear Laurens.

What is there to say?

~

Alexander is in love.

There are many who would say he should feel guilty about that; that it is unnatural for man to love another man as he is meant to love woman. Alexander has never had time for guilt.

John seems to have enough for both of them, anyway.

That does not stop John from touching him first, from laying a hand upon his cheek, from pressing his lips to Alexander's own. Of course, John retreats almost immediately, as if he lost his sense for a moment. Alexander chases after him. He wants. He needs. He takes.

~

Most men would call it degrading; the very thought of lying on their backs and spreading their legs like a women offensive.

Alexander pities them.

_ He  _ has never felt more connected to another person then when John is above him, between his legs, whispering his name into the warm air around them. He can feel his own heartbeat become erratic, he can hear John's echoing, and Alexander knows that this is unlike anything he could ever hope to have during a tumble with some local girl.

Alexander gives his masculinity, just for a moment, and it is beautiful.

~

John struggles.

Alexander is not blind. He sees the way John thumbs through his Bible after they've been together. He sees the way John bristles at the mere suggestion that he is anything but moral. He sees the confliction in John's every hesitation.

Alexander wishes he could free John from it, but only he himself can come to terms with his own heart.

~

“Then I'll do it,” John says, not like a man filled to the brim with fury, but like a man who is simply stating the most logical course of action. If Alexander cannot duel Charles Lee, then John will. Easy.

Except it is  _ not  _ easy. It is terrifying. Alexander fears for John's life enough when they are both faceless targets amongst hundreds of other faceless targets for the British to fire upon. John is reckless; Alexander thinks he  _ wants _ to die half of the time. And now Lee might just fulfill that desire.

While Alexander looks on helplessly.

“Laurens,” he warns. “Do not throw away your shot.”

John duels Lee anyway.

For the first time since he was a boy, young and hopeful that God would listen him, would  _ save  _ him and his mother, Alexander prays. And God mustn’t hate sinners as much as the pastors and the good book claim, because his John walks away from a bloodied Lee unharmed.

~

Alexander lays with John again and again and again, always under the cloak of night, always with his teeth deep in his lower lip, but not because he fears retribution from God or man. It is John's burden to fear. It is Alexander's duty, as John's lover, to alleviate his fears.

_ Lover.  _ What makes a lover? Is it simply bedding one society deems inappropriate? Does it require its root of  _ love? _ Shakespeare once wrote of two foolish children and called them  _ star-crossed lovers _ because Fate gave them no favor, but are not all lovers enemies of Fate? After all, there is no time between birth and death that  _ anyone _ is expected to fall madly and irredeemably in love with another. When it does happen, it causes heartache and misery for those who cannot control their hearts.

_ All lovers are star-crossed,  _ Alexander wishes he could tell Shakespeare,  _ but the solution is simple. _

Alexander would burn out every star in the sky if he could have John forever. He is not afraid of consequences so-called unavoidable.

There is no place left for fear within him.

~

“I do not wish to sound foolish,” Alexander murmurs one night. There is nothing special about this night, except that he shares it with John, and perhaps that makes it the most precious night of all.

“You rarely sound foolish,” says John. Alexander flushes at the complement. He is not so humble to be unaware of his skill with words, but kind acknowledgement of said skill from someone he holds so dear still pulls a reaction from him. Thankfully, it is too dark for John to notice.

“But I'm afraid the question must escape the confines of my mind, lest it torment me for any longer,” presses Alexander.   
  
John says nothing.

“Do you love me?” Alexander asks, acutely aware of how small his voice sounds, how naïve and childish the question must be seen.

“Did we not just make love?”

_ Yes,  _ Alexander wants to scream,  _ yes, yes, we made love.  _ But as stupid as he knows he sounded, asking John if his love is truly returned, Alexander is  _ not  _ actually dense or feminine enough to think that all sex is automatically love-making, which is his goddamn reason for proposing the question in the first place.

Alexander digs his fingernails into John's hip. “John.” His tone borders a whine.

“I love you, Alexander,” John whispers, so low that Alexander can barely hear him.

Yet, it is enough.

“I love you, John.”

~

John gets to die in South Carolina twenty-two years before Alexander because he was a God-fearing man who knew - and perhaps repented - his sins.

If Alexander did not love John more than anything in this life, he would surely hate him.

~


End file.
